He threw back the lid and stared at the creamy froth as a seer stares at his ball of crystal.

Carmichael was right; he was a doddering fool.

What was done was done, and a thousand consciences would not right it.

And what right had conscience to drag him back to Ehrenstein, where he had known the bitterest and happiest moments of his life?
And yet, rail as he might at this invisible restraint called conscience, he saw God's direction in this return.

Only _he_, Hans Grumbach, knew and one other.